Friday, February 10, 2012

Unifying the Editions

That's something that we're working on right now. But some of the
answers are obvious. Six ability scores ranging from 3 to 18. Fighters,
clerics, wizards, and rogues. (Or, if you prefer, fighting-men, clerics,
magic-users, and thieves.) Character levels. Experience points. Rolling
a d20 to attack. Magic missiles. Fireballs. Hold person. And so on.

In effect, what you end up with is a fully playable game with its
own style. Think of it this way: It would be wrong to say that there is
no inherent D&D style that carries across the nearly forty-year
lifespan of the game. What you really end up with, in this approach, is a
game that ends up looking—not coincidentally—like original D&D. Not
entirely, of course, and not precisely, but close. It's a game that
captures the feel of OD&D.

Of course this not exactly new news as the authors of the various retro-clones like OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, or Labyrinth Lord can tell you. But it heartening to see that the core version of D&D Next may wind up something that looks like one of the OSR retro-clones. That would mean an expanded audience for everybody in the OSR as it would be way easier to leap into playing a older edition from those rules than it would be if all you experienced was D&D 4th edition.

And even if D&D Next didn't wind up looking like a OSR retro clone, the attention to old style D&D gaming will prove beneficial to the OSR in the long run.

"That would mean an expanded audience for everybody in the OSR as it would be way easier to leap into playing a older edition from those rules than it would be if all you experienced was D&D 4th edition."

Last time I checked the OSR was about a *way* of playing role-playing games, the way it was in the olden days and perhaps taking it in some direction other then the one that led to the status quo.

Why does D&DN have to be a gateway to older editions if it has the spirit of those same rule-sets? It looks to me from that statement like it's some taboo to play a game that's currently in print and that would be... I wouldn't agree with that.

But the reality is that the point of some OSR communities is to play a particular older edition not something "like" it. D&D Next is looking to be a good thing for these groups for the reason given in my post.

I have a friend that once commented to me that the Rolling Stones had become a Rolling Stones cover band. I see this move in a similar light. It just seems like a pale, sad reflection of something that was once great. I hope that the players of the next edition of D&D are happy.

Bat in the Attic Games

How to make a Sandbox

The Old School Renaissance

To me the Old School Renaissance is not about playing a particular set of rules in a particular way, the dungeon crawl. It is about going back to the roots of our hobby and seeing what we could do differently. What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time.

What are RPGs?

A game where the players play individual characters interacting with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

Rules are an aide to help the referee adjudicate actions and to help the players interact with the setting.

Dice are used to inject uncertainty which make a tabletop RPG campaign more interesting than "Let's Pretend".

The only thing a player needs to do to roleplay a character is to act if he or she was really there in the setting in that situation.